FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS • The home advantage wasn't quite enough to earn a trophy for the O'Fallon boys bowling team.
The Panthers, who were in first place after six games Friday, had to settle for fourth in the state tournament Saturday at St. Clair Bowl.
Tinley Park Andrew won the team title with a 213.7 average and 12,821 pins. Runner-up Vernon Hills and third-place Rockton Hononegah finished 169 and 246 pins behind, respectively.
O'Fallon posted a 206.6 average with 12,396 pins, 425 behind Andrew.
"It's hard to be behind after lunch (going into the final three games)," O'Fallon coach Mike Imes said. "You want to be on top having people chase you. The guys ahead of us all bowled great, and you can't take anything away from them."
While he wanted to claim a trophy at the Panthers' home center, Imes wasn't disappointed.
"Fourth place is awesome," he said. "We were 11th last year with the same team, so we made a major jump."
Two Panthers cracked the top 20. Sophomore Billy Goodman tied for 11th and earned a medal, while junior Tommy Frost was 15th.
"We started out well as a team, and my goal today was just to help the team as much as possible," said Goodman, who had a 220.3 average while placing 89 pins behind state champion Joey Kopera of Orland Park Sandburg. "A medal was kind of on my mind, too, because my sister (Natalie, a former girls state champion now a freshman at Vanderbilt) started medaling as a sophomore, too.
"At our school, no guys team has ever won state, so we wanted to be the first. We're kind of disappointed because we were so good yesterday, but we still have the highest finish for our school."
Alton placed sixth with a 204.9 average and 12,291 pins. Redbirds senior Philip Meyer placed 10th and was the highest finisher from the Metro East.
"I feel excited because it's a goal I've had throughout my high school career," said Meyer, who had a 220.7 average while placing 85 pins out of first place. "I was 14th going into the last game, but I knew I was only 12 pins out of medaling. I threw the ball well all weekend and some shots didn't carry, but that's bowling for you.
"It feels good as a team because last year we finished 12th. We pretty much had the same team we did last year, but this year we're graduating four seniors. We felt like we had to get it done."
Sandburg's Kopera, who was bowling as an individual, had a 227.8 average and 2,733 pins, three more than second-place C.J. Kirchner of Herrin.
"I was actually kind of down after the first day," said Kopera, who placed fifth last season. "I was in 20th place and I didn't do so great, but I knew after I shot 670 in the first series this morning, I was going to place high. I had no idea that I would come out with a 749 this afternoon to win it."
Andrew, which also won in 2004-05 and 2005-06, becomes the first boys team to earn three state titles.
"We always had that monkey on our shoulder with those teams winning back to back and people asking when we were going to win it again," said Andrew coach Mark Lobes, who was an assistant on the 2005-06 team. "The past couple times we finished sixth, but the mojo just felt right this time."
Andrew's Josh Powell and Josh Dory finished fourth and seventh.
Mascoutah's Anthony Betcher placed 14th.
